March/April 2017

Article Excerpts

Welcome Brian Goslow Welcome to our Eleventh Anniversary Issue with special thanks to our readers and advertisers, all of the galleries, museums, artists and publicists we have worked with and, especially, our devoted writers whose hard work has filled our pages. It would be an understatement to say the past few months have been an emotional rollercoaster for those living in the United States, and this has seemed especially true for its artists. Some are addressing their emotions directly through ...

Mohamad Hafez Gina Fraone One of the most divisive issues facing our nation today is that of immigration. Fanning the flames of that political hotbed are the raging international conflicts that are resulting in staggering numbers of refugees. Mohamad Hafez, an architect and artist currently residing with his family in New Haven, Conn., was born in Syria. With horror and tremendous sadness, he has watched from afar as his beloved homeland is obliterated by a civil war that has turned ...

AN EXODUS FROZEN IN TIME Greg Morell When you walk through the doors of Northampton’s Oxbow Gallery on March 2, be prepared to confront something completely different. It is the official opening of Harriet Diamond’s “Driven from their Homes,” an installation of over 100 ceramic figurines retreating from the horrors of wartime destruction, seeking escape and a flight from oppression in an attempt to survive and emerge into safety. It is an exodus frozen in time. I first became aware ...

EXPLORING THE SPACE WITHIN Donna Dodson Soo Sunny Park is one of New England’s most talented artists. With recent shows at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum and Burlington City Arts in Vermont that launched her national and international reputation, she has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to create new work at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire. Park’s “BioLath” promises to intrigue and delight her devoted fans and stretch the ...

CODING AS A DESIGN TOOL AT TUFTS Franklin W. Liu It is said that every age has its own fashion expression, in pleasure, in wit and in manners. Tuft’s cutting-edge exhibition, “Coded_Couture” shows fashion design as the impetus for a digital Magical Mystery Tour that boldly transgresses the traditional boundary of couturier. This couture-collection explores the stylish language of personal adornment, albeit shaped by an imaginative cybertechnology theme, reflecting on the social impact of the interactive, smartphone-toting, dynamic social-networking world ...

WEAPONS UNLOADED IN MAINE J. Fatima Martins In the exhibition catalog for “Unloaded,” artist-curator Susanne Slavick writes what we already know to be true: “The American intimacy with guns has many roots, largely stemming from the culture’s glorification and protection of individualism and personal liberties.” “Unloaded” is a traveling exhibition that, since 2015, has already been installed in six venues, the most recent presentation at the Bolivar Art Gallery at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. After its showing at the ...

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE Marguerite Serkin The paintings of David Rohn honor symmetry and unpredictability. Working in watercolor and oil for over seven decades, Rohn creates still lifes, landscapes and portraits by combining radically independent expression with the discreet laws of natural placement. Form and the illusory play equal parts in his paintings, as does his inimitable use of light and shadow. As though imbued with a reverential gift to portray the luminescence of everyday situations, Rohn’s watercolors and oils ...

MULTISENSORY SURPRISE AT PHILLIPS EXETER Linda Chestney “You cannot move people Until you touch them.” — Gary O’Neil The above quote was coined by Gary O’Neil, an icon in the advertising/marketing industry in New Hampshire for 30 years and founder of the O’Neil Griffin Bodi advertising firm, who was wildly successful because he got the bigger picture. He understood that unless you touch people’s hearts, you won’t accomplish the ultimate goal of change — no matter what your profession — ...

COSO’S WINTER MEMBERS SHOW Lisa Mikulski It’s a pleasure to rejoin the staff at Artscope after four years in Sweden, with a review of the Copley Society of Art’s 2017 Winter Members Show, “Shaken and Stirred.” This year’s exhibition features a range of dynamic artists and works spanning media in photography, oil, acrylic, watercolor, mixed media, pastel, graphite and scratchboard. Seeking to provide respite to the dark landscape of winter and the seriousness of the recent political climate, the Copley ...

SHACKING UP IN PTOWN Laura Shabott In the early 1900s, writers, artists and families made summer homes on the wild back shore of Provincetown, Massachusetts. Affectionately called the “dune shacks,” some were originally life-saving huts constructed in the late 1890s, but most were built in the 1920s and ‘30s out of debris and shipwrecked ruins. A cluster of these original structures exists today. A solo exhibition by photographer Jane Paradise, “The Dune Shacks of Provincetown: Series 1,” opens March 1 ...

AN EXUBERANCE OF 3-D LINE Suzanne Volmer For Barbara Owen, whose threedimensional paper drawings have a vibrant energy and elegance, 2016 was a productive year in terms of exhibitions, and 2017 promises to be a banner year as well. She is an artist hitting her stride. During a recent studio visit, Owen displayed an assortment of huge paper snarls that read as luxuriant bursts of glowing color, commanding attention like a tractor beam. One of these 3-D drawings was bright ...

LOCALLY SOURCED CREATIVITY Flavia Cigliano When Margaret Burdine opened Artists Corner & Gallery in January 2016, she knew what the gallery’s mission would be. She wanted to build a community of artists, artisans and patrons. She wanted her gallery to be a source for local art, and a place for creative interactions offering classes, workshops, juried shows and special events. A year in, things are coming together nicely. Combining her aesthetic vision with a sound business decision, Burdine located the ...

CURATING CLASSIC TO CONTEMPORARY Kristin Nord Theodate Pope Riddle could not have foreseen that the stipulations she made in her will would pose such a challenge for Hill-Stead. It’s an exquisite museum, and one of the remaining great country estates near Hartford, but until recently, many visitors have behaved as if one cursory tour was enough. It’s been up to new leadership to convince its audiences that Hill-Stead remains a living, breathing entity worth exploring many times, and from many ...

GENERATIONS OF WYETHS AND MORE Elayne Clift The rocky coastline and the lobsters that inhabit its waters are the two treasures most tourists want to experience when they visit Maine. But there is another reason to explore the state’s midsection - its art scene, centered in the Rockport/Rockland area. Many well-known artists have lived and worked in Maine and still do. Perhaps most notable among them is the three-generation Wyeth family, whose links to Rockland’s Farnsworth Museum, specializing in American ...

AN ANTIDOTE TO WINTER James Foritano Once again, it’s time for the Cambridge Art Association’s annual Members Prize Show. This year’s juror, Randi Hopkins, director of visual arts at the Boston Center for the Arts, selected member artists who hail from Cambridge and beyond. The members’ inspiration comes, necessarily, from wherever they happen to be in the life of their art and in a moment of time. For visitors, likewise, our receptivity comes both from the sum of our lives ...

FROM NEW BEDFORD TO PORTUGAL: TIPS FOR IMPLEMENTING PLAN B Ron Fortier My name is Ron Fortier and I’m an American abstract painter living and working on the Silver Coast of the Portuguese mainland. After 40 or so years in marketing and advertising, I finally had the chance to do what I’ve wanted to do since the day I received my MFA in painting from the University of Miami. In less than six months, I’ve been able to accomplish more ...

A COLORFUL ROAD TRIP THROUGH INDIA Molly Hamill Last year, photographers Maria Cusumano and Mark Towner traveled to India together and brought back the images that comprise their show now on view at Endicott College, “Om Tat Sat: Reflections from Mumbai to Kolkata.” The collection of images offers the viewer a smattering of India’s bold colors and a glance at scenes from a dynamic and complicated country. Both artists are on staff at Endicott, Cusumano a fine arts faculty member ...

GO FIGURE! Don Wilkinson Early in 2015, I was visiting the Narrows Center for the Arts in the old South Coast mill city of Fall River, taking notes for a possible review. While I was there, Debra Charlebois, the director of operations for the gallery, asked me if I might consider acting as a guest curator at some point. The invitation was fairly openended. The subject of the exhibition and the artists to be included would be entirely at my ...

PRINTS OF PEACE Suzanne Volmer In her artist statement, printmaker Elizabeth Goddard mentions that she is interested in beauty as it relates to peace, stating, “Art that is beautiful brings a great sense of serenity and joy to those who witness it; these people share their sense of peace with their communities and, by extension, with the world.” The Newport, Rhode Island-based artist is showcasing her work at three current and upcoming exhibitions. She always seems involved in a multifaceted ...

IMAGINATION MEETS MEMORY Elizabeth Michelman I first met Iranian artist Roya Amigh on a July afternoon in a converted horse barn in Ghent, New York. I was visiting the open studios of Art OMI, an international artists’ residency in the Hudson River Valley. The sweaty bodies and the mid-day heat were overwhelming, so I ducked into a dark stall to catch my breath. As my eyes adjusted, the scanty light revealed clouds of paper scraps — white, pale pink and ...

PROJECTING LIGHT ON SOCIAL ISSUES Nancy Nesvet Krzysztof Wodiczko, Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s professor in residence of art, design and the public domain, who also works with the Interrogative Design Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), combines art and technology with emerging social issues to produce creative projects involving veterans of war, disasters and other trauma. His artistic practice, which he calls interrogative design, incorporates sound production, projections, specially constructed robots and other forms to give ...

A GALLERY OF ENERGIZED CONTENT Suzanne Volmer Yunmin and Kurt Zala debuted Gallery BOM in Boston’s SoWa District in November 2016 with a two-part exhibition of works by Jung Woo Cho, the highlight of which was Cho’s installation, “Purity,” that explored the idea of water’s renewable potential and related to the artist’s nuanced spiritual understanding of earth as habitat. A series of accompanying aqueouslooking wall reliefs offered a compelling invitation for audiences to step inside Gallery BOM for a closer ...

PRINTMAKING REIMAGINED Brian Goslow The “2017 Wheaton Biennial: Printmaking Reimagined,” featuring work by 60 artists from 30 states, Canada and Sweden, is an exciting show thanks to the many facets and techniques of the printmaking genre it presents . From traditional linocuts and lithographs to the more modern relief prints and works presented on tissue, cot ton and Asian-made papers that have found a welcoming audience in the expanding craft shows and markets that have blossomed over the past decade, ...

MOSAIC OF ART AND SCIENCE Lisa Mikulski Artist Duken Delpe is a very busy man these days, with a spate of international and local events. In 2016, Delpe designed the main stage for the South Shore Indie Music Festival with the theme “Art Sustains Us,” and he will do the same for the 2017 show. Also this year, the award-winning artist will participate in Art Olympia in Tokyo, Japan while also undertaking his long list of submissions and projects. With ...

TAKING HISTORY TO HEART Kristin Nord Brian Walters’ metal sculptures have been stored over the years behind a stand of old-fashioned lilac bushes on the Bethel, Conn. property where he grew up. Even in winter, the bushes provide a natural screen of branches and buds that protects his works-in-progress. Within the next few days, works from his “Urban Totem” series will be loaded up and transported to Hartford’s ArtSpace Gallery for a month-long exhibition that uses “Behind the Lilac Bush” ...